How the Whale Became

'How the Whale Became'
By Ted Hughes

Kevin Kerr has contributed these guided reading questions. As always, any more resources for this book would be gratefully received!

Week 1

Read pages 1 & 2
Read from page 3 to the end of page 12
What were the first two things Owl discovered?
What reason did Owl give for travelling by night across the frontier?
What did the rabbits think the birds were doing?
What did Owl say would kill all the birds?
Who was really killing the birds?
Why did Owl not want the birds to return to their old country?
What did Robin suggest as a way of killing themselves?
What did the birds think of being tricked?

Week 2

Read from page 13 to the end of page 19
What was god pleased with?
How did the Whale start growing?
What animal did the huge mouth say it was?
What did mouse originally suggest to do with the strange thing?
Why did God poke a hole in Whales head?
What did Whale-Wort love to do?

Week 3

Read from page 20 to the end of page 27
What were the names of the two creatures?
Who ponders a great deal?
Who was eventually chosen to decide the matter?
What did Slylooking say to rabbit about the cabbages?
What did Fox do snickity-snackety?
Why did Fox loose the taste for cabbage leaves?
How was he caught?
What happened to Foursquare?

Week 4

Read from page 49 to the end of page 55
What was the Demon doing in the dark tunnels?
Who landed on his clawed, horny foot?
Why did he want water?
How did the Demon trick God into breathing onto the clay?
Why did the creature long to see the other creatures?
How did the little creature escape?
How was he going to make himself feel better?
Why did he have to keep on hurrying from flower to flower?
What is a hive?

Week 5

Have you got a cat, what is its name?
Read from page 56 to the end of page 61
Where was all the noise coming from?
What did the other creature think of Cats music?
What did they think it was time for cat to do?
What did Cat say to Man?
What job did Cat get?
Why did Cat only catch a few rats and mice each night?
What did Mrs Man think of Cat?

Week 6

Read from page 77 to the end of page 84
Who was Bombo?
What were his main troubles?
What happened after the wolves left?
Where did Bombo go?
How did Bombo help the animals?
Have you ever seen a Bombo?
If you have time draw a Bombo.